ARMAGNACS, The, mercenary bands, derived chiefly from the district of Ar magnac in southern France, and largely trained in the army recruited in 1410 by Count Bernard of Armagnac for his contest with the Duke of Burgundy. They made themselves ex tremely oppressive in France through their plundering; and when the Emperor Frederick HI requested auxiliary troops from Charles VII, to assist in the conquest of the Swiss, the latter gladly dispatched the Armagnacs. Doubtless the King believed he might at the same time be able to gain control of territory on the left bank of the upper Rhine. What is known as the Armagnac War ensued. In Ger many the word Armagnac was converted into armer Geck (apoor fool*), and the war fre quently styled Armegeckenkrieg. On band of 20,000 Armagnacs proceeded by way of Lor raine, another of 30,000 to southern Alsace, whence it marched against the Swiss. At Saint Jacob on the Birs, 26 Aug. 1444, it was badly
defeated, with a loss of 6,000, by 2,000 Swiss. It then retired to Alsace, and on 28 October a treaty (that of Ensisheim) was concluded be tween France and the Swiss Confederation. The Armagnacs continued for a time to work havoc in Alsace and Swabia, where the peas antry retaliated by condemning to death an Armagnac whenever they caught one. In 1445 the remnant was in part dismissed by Charles VII, in part incorporated with other companies of soldiery. Consult the article by Barthold in Raumer's Taschenbuch> (2d series, Vol. III, 1842) ; Wiilcken, and Schreiber, betreffend den Zug der Armag naken' (Frankfort 1873) ; Chevalier, U., toire des sources historiques du moyen age> (Montbiliard 1894) ; Dognon, Paul, 'Les Ar magnacs,' etc., in Annales du Midi (1889) ; Witte, Armagnaken im Elsass, 1439-1445> (Strassburg 1889).